Latin American History Commons^™

Todo Sobre América Latina, Kayla Madeline Schwartz

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to inform a Spanish-speaking audience about the humanities of Latin America. The format is a blog which solicits more engagement with the embedded research and written text. Colorful photos and informative videos attract the attention of a general public that may otherwise not be interested in learning extensively about history and culture. Such focus is important because Latin American past has great bearing on the lives of much of the Latinx community today—in many regions.

Specifically, this blog contains articles about history, literature, movies and shows, dance, and travelling. The audience can learn about a broad timeline …

Coastal Frontiers: The Littoral Borderland In Alta California And The Spanish Pacific World, Chantra Vanna Potts

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the intricate relationship between Spanish exploration, the economy of the Pacific World, and their impact on colonization in Alta California during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It offers a new perspective on the history of the region by situating it within the context of the Eastern Pacific Basin and littoral borderlands, highlighting the transregional and global processes that shaped social and economic exchanges among Spanish colonists, Indigenous people, European and Anglo-American merchants, and diverse groups of sailors on the northern frontier of New Spain. Using the theoretical framework of mental mapping, or the subjective mental representation …

The Immigrant Nannies Of New York City: An Examination Of The Friendships Between Nannies And Mother-Employers, Esmeralda Paula

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This ethnography focuses on the emotions of the women of color who elaborated on their experiences working for wealthy, white families in ethnographic interviews. This project is interested in the connections formed between nannies and mother-employers with the goal of better understanding the positionalities of female domestic workers of color. Immigrant populations are frequently depicted by news outlets as overworked, underpaid, and poor. When interacting with nannies, I realized that these women did not consider themselves impoverished despite working in a role that is identifiable with servanthood. The labor that nannies perform calls back to a long tradition of women …

Yankee Go Home: Roci In Latin America, Vitoria Hadba

Theses and Dissertations

In 1984, at an event hosted by the United Nations, American artist Robert Rauschenberg announced his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange—or ROCI. Blending primary source documents with social art history, I retrace the artist’s steps—and missteps—during the first leg of his tour through Mexico, Chile, and Venezuela. This thesis investigates the convoluted political implications of ROCI in Latin America during the transitional period in which binary Cold War politics were ebbing amidst the rise of a global free-market economy.

Acoso Visual: Staring Back At The State And Gender Conformity, Juan Luna

Honors Theses

A semi-autoethnographic piece that uses a radical transfeminist lens to interrogate hegemonic systems of gender and race in the Dominican Republic through the violence that Trans and Gender Nonconforming people face. While focusing on trans violence, this thesis explicitly turns its gaze away from Trans/Gender Nonconforming people and interrogates the state, cisnormativity, and gender conformity. This thesis explores how acoso visual (visual accosting) is a historically informed process that works to border trans/gender nonconformity out of the idea of Dominicanidad. Ultimately, this text reminds Trans/Gender Nonconforming individuals that they are not the reason for the transphobia that they experience, and …

Special Relationships: Anglo-American Latin America Policy And The Redefining Of National Security, 1969-1982, Benjamin Jared Pack

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From 1969–82, the United States and Great Britain redefined national security in a distinctive way, separating the notion of national security from its traditional foundations in realist thought. The way the two powers come to define national security was the result of more than a century of historical interaction with Latin America and their own historical experience with ideology, imperialism, and colonialism. As such, the way the United States and Great Britain perceived their respective special relationships influenced the way they chose to intervene in matters of national security, particularly in Latin America’s Southern Cone countries of Chile and Argentina. …

"La Llorona": Evolución, Ideología Y Uso En El Mundo Hispano, Raquel Sáenz-Llano

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis studies the evolution, ideology and use of the myth of La Llorona through time in the Hispanic World. Considering this myth as one of the most known traditional narratives of the American continent, I begin by providing visual, ethnohistorical and ethnographical insights of weeping in Mesoamerica and South America and the specific mention of a weeping woman in some Spanish chronicles to say how western values were stablished in “the new continent” through this legend. I suggest that during the postcolonialism the legend did not tell anymore about a mother that cries and search a place for their …

Para Los Hijos Y Nuestro Futuro: Reconceptualizing Costa Rican Identity Through The Civil War, Amberlyn Britt

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

After the 1948 Civil War, Costa Rican people redefined their society and democracy, and created a nation that, unlike many others in the region, was able to withstand pressures toward corruption and violence. By examining personal narratives, this study observes how various groups such as Costa Rican men, women, and Afro-West Indians related to the nation‟s traditions of democracy and its identity of exceptionalism. In 1948, Costa Ricans fought against a government that they viewed as corrupt and oppressive to secure a better future for not only themselves, but for all of Costa Rica.

Ansiedades Épico-Criollas Y El Mecenazgo De Indias En El Arauco Domado De Pedro De Oña, Andrea L. Fernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Among the characteristics of epic poetry are the topic of war, love encounters, heroism of exemplary individuals, and the narration of events contemporary to the audience to reinforce a collective historical identity. Arauco domado by Pedro de Oña, born in Angol (modern Chile), reiterates these traditional expectations with its protagonist, characters, setting, and latter theatrical representations within the viceregal context. The poem was made possible by the sponsorship of García Hurtado de Mendoza y Manrique, IV Marquis of Cañete and Viceroy of Peru. If the title of “espíritu cesarino novelo” [Caesar’s new spirit] (V.76.3) corresponds to the patron, Pedro de …

Territories Of Contestation In Medellín: Destierro, Memory, The Youth, And The State, Joan C. Lopez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is partly a study of the social and political territories that are generated by the displaced as responses to the warfare tactic of el destierro (displacement); and it is also an exploration of how the state operates at the intersection between its imagined centers and its margins. This thesis attempts to look at the state from its imagined margins and to explore how displacement, the regulation of the movement of specific bodies within and across specifically defined regions of Colombia, has been a fundamental practice for, and not against, the formation of the Colombian “state” as we see …

Wanderers Of Empire: The Tropical Tramp In Latin America, 1870-1930, Jack Werner

Masters Theses

U.S. public and private imperial interests confronted the problem of labor and labor power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as the U.S. empire expanded into Latin America and the Caribbean. The question of how to make an empire work spurred the creation of new labor regimes reliant on black West Indians who traveled to work in the Panama Canal Zone and on United Fruit Company (UFCO) banana plantations. Just as importantly, new labor regimes engendered new categories for troublesome laborers. One of these classifications, “tramp,” surfaced in the United States after the U.S. Civil War as a …

“The Commercial Union Of The Three Americas:” Major Edward A. Burke And Transnational New South Visionaries, 1870-1928, Michael Powers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traditional images of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century American South are of an inward-looking region characterized by economic stagnation, xenophobia, cultural isolation, and reactionary politics. This dissertation contends that vibrant transnational links connected the South to the wider world through an analysis of the political and economic landscape of postbellum Louisiana, the 1884 New Orleans World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial, the Louisiana State Lottery Company, and Central America. An examination of Edward Austin Burke demonstrates that the era’s New South creed comprised a seminal transnational component.

This dissertation will explore how Burke became a central cog in Louisiana’s Democratic …

De Manera Errante: Forging Decolonial Paths, Wailly Comprés

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Linguistic Imperialism And Volunteer English Teaching: A Neo-Colonial Practice?, Sarah K. Hamburg

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Colonial era tactics of oppression may seem obsolete; however, the United States continues to exploit the same peripheral nations that it, and other world superpowers, have dominated for centuries. In Latin America, the influence of the American hegemony penetrates every aspect of life. Unable to escape the grip of the capitalist system, Latin America has become culturally subservient to the United States, whose supremacy has, over time, led to the extinction and endangerment of hundreds of indigenous languages and cultures. Through years of exposure to American mass culture (i.e. television, music, media, and consumer products), and an unyielding economically dependent …

El Paralelismo Entre Los Cambios Demograficos Y Los Medios Sociales Y Su Impacto En El Activismo En America Latina, Ashley Beccia

Honors Theses

En la segunda mitad del siglo XX, los avances sociales, especialmente en los ámbitos tecnológicos y médicos, cambiaron la manera en que viven los seres humanos. Los sectores demográficos empezaron a experimentar grandes transformaciones debido a la reducción de la tasa de mortalidad infantil y el crecimiento de la expectativa de vida (Saad 240). Como consecuencia, ha emergido una nueva época de vida, que se llama la edad de adulta emergente, que es caracterizada por la exploración y construcción de la identidad y creencias personales (Smith y Snell 6). Las nuevas estructuras sociales alrededor del mundo han requerido que los …

Constructing Marianismo In Colonial Mexico, Kathryn A. Buchanan

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Las Madres De Plaza De Mayo, Then And Now: A Comparative Analysis Of Its Fractured Factions And Lasting Sybolism In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sondra Anton

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

I conducted research on three different factions of the original Madres de Plaza de Mayo cause in Buenos Aires, Argentina: Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Through interviews and archival research, I have completed a comparison of the three groups. I have concluded that although their original cause of demanding the whereabouts of their disappeared children united them, they are now deeply fragmented among one another due to their differing opinions of how to achieve justice in post-Dirty War Argentina. Furthermore, it is interesting to note the …

La Identidad De Los Carabineros De Chile: The Evolving Identity Of Chile's National Police Force And The 1973 Military Coup, Jeffrey O. Lamson

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the evolution of Los Carabineros de Chile, Chile's national police force, from their origins under Carlos Ibáñez in 1927 until their involvement in the 1973 military coup against President Salvador Allende. Various presidencies primarily used this corps during this period as a weapon against popular mobilization and thus influenced the development of the Carabineros' institutional identity. To explore how this identity evolved, this thesis examines primary sources, mostly in the form of newspapers found in the National Archives in Santiago, Chile, that illuminate the Carabineros' relations with the public. The knowledge of the Carabineros' institutional identity contributes …

Poesía E Historicidad En Ernesto Cardenal Y Roberto Fernández Retamar, Alberto David Rivera Vaca

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the meta-poetic and historicist thought in Ernesto Cardenal and Roberto Fernández Retamar’s poetry. The concept these poets have poetry is closely related to the historical moment of their times. They ponder about poetry and its function, poetic thought that is nourished by a historical consciousness. This close relationship between poetry and history inevitably includes sensitivity to the social situation in their respective countries and in Latin America. These poets seek to understand the concrete reality thus coming closer to the truth of things. The study shows that these poets, based on history and poetic thought, assume their …

"Never Draw Unless You Mean To Shoot": United States Department Of State's Responses To Property Seizures In Latin America, Nathan D. Younge

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the U.S. Department of State's diplomatic handling of disputes over the seizure of U.S.-owned property in Latin America between 1937 and 1973. Seizures in Bolivia, Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru and Chile are used as case studies, and provide examples of successful and unsuccessful diplomatic outcomes.

Several key factors are analyzed in each dispute, including Several key factors are analyzed in each dispute, including whether the Department took a conciliatory or confrontational approach toward each country, the kind of economic pressure applied, the situations under which the Department opted for official diplomatic involvement, and the types of informal …

Brazil; Our Economic Partner: A Study Of Brazil And The Future Of Our Trade, Dorothy Kleppinger

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This 62 page thesis examines Brazil's history, resources, industrialization and relations with the United States.